


Invader REE

by WolfsbaneHorizon



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Because there’s dragons, Character Death, Dragons, Guilt, Light Angst, Revenge, did i mention dragons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-12 02:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19122382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfsbaneHorizon/pseuds/WolfsbaneHorizon
Summary: A secret experiment by one of the past Tallests to enhance the Irken body and allow it to turn into a dragon at will is performed on test subject R14X TALON. The experiment is a success... kind of. The berserk dragon is sealed away in the lab for centuries, until Tallest Red and Purple discover it once again. With the release of the dragon, the Irken race is threatened with annihilation if it isn’t stopped. Meanwhile, a mysterious invader is sent off to Planet Theon...





	1. Ree-Awakening

Final Entry

Today, Subject R14X TALON is set to transform for the first time. The last one didn’t end up surviving, but I’m running out of time. Even if the last one still ended up all squishy and melty and then exploded, this one HAS to work. I don’t have time to get any more test subjects, so... For the survival of the greatest race in the universe, the great and mighty Irkens, this final test subject WILL work. TALON... TALON... TALON is the last hope of the Irken Empire. Today, the Irkons will reign supreme!

-Tallest Z

 

This is it… If this doesn’t work, the Irken race will end.

…

Sigh.

Let’s do it.

…

Attach the tubes. Stabilize Subject’s skikin. Begin scalyzation. Drain excess mucinon. Expand. Take itum sample for later reference.

…Begin DNA mutation awakening.

…

…..

………

So far… so good. It seems like it’s… working…?

…

…Subject is not melting yet, which is a good sign. And…

…Yes! Claws… fangs… wings… they’re all stable! There doesn’t appear to be… any… signs of squishification…!

…

…Wait… Wait, no, this isn’t… this isn’t right!

REEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

** _Chapter 1: Ree-Awakening_ **

 

Many centuries later…

In a couple months, Operation Impending Doom 2 will commence. All of it has been planned out and many Irkens are scrambling to become strong Invaders to be chosen to be a part of this monumental undertaking.

Meanwhile, the Tallests Red and Purple have pretty much finished preparations. They’ve plotted out a map of all the targeted planets and created a list of possibilities for what to turn each planet into once they’ve been taken over. There’s still some minor things to sort out, but they’re going to pass that job off to their underlings so they can just sit back and relax until the Invasions begin. However, as the two are sitting in their relaxation room on Irk, they hear a knock at the door and groan silently. “What is it?” Red calls, only slightly hiding the annoyance in his voice.

“My Tallest,” calls another Irken’s voice from outside the door. “A few Irkens were out in Jupin Field and they stumbled across some old door. We looked into it and it seems that only a Tallest would be able to open the door. So… can you help us?”

“We’re kind of busy here,” Red replies, stuffing a donut into his mouth. Purple, who had too many chips in his mouth to speak, just nods in agreement.

“B-but my Tallest! This… is a request from the Control Brains…”

At the mention of the Control Brains, the Tallests tense up slightly and start paying a bit more attention. “…I see,” says Red. “Then I suppose we have some time.”

“Thank you, my Tallest! I’ll lead you there!”

“Yeah yeah we’re amazing.”

^^^^^

Soon enough, the Tallests arrive at the door they were told about. This door definitely looks to be centuries old; it’s a wonder it hasn’t just broken down on its own after all this time. Somehow, it’s still holding strong and keeping the common Irkens out. Tallest Red goes up to the door and allows the scanner to read his PAK. Once it recognizes him as the Tallest, the door opens and the two enter the dark room.

It appears to be some sort of old laboratory. There’s papers and broken glass scattered about, as well as a bunch of small test chambers with tubes and wires strewn about. The Tallests slowly enter this broken lab, noting the thin, purple mist running across the stained floor. Who knows what that mist could be hiding, as there does seem to be tiny creatures crawling around the floor around them, but it’s hard to tell if there’s actually something there or if it’s just a mirage conjured up from the pervading mist.

“This is strange,” Red comments. “Why wasn’t this found sooner? There could be valuable research somewhere in here.”

“Yeah,” Purple agrees. “And since only the Tallest could enter, you’d think the Control Brains would have known about this too.”

Suddenly, the two stop short when they hear a low growl from somewhere in the darkness. “What was that?” Red whispers, looking around. “Is there someone here?”

Suddenly, two glowing blue eyes pierce through the shadowy haze and glare at the Tallests. “And… who are you?” Purple asks. The eyes blink and, slowly, a large talon creeps out of the sticky darkness. Then another. Then an entire scaly body emerges from the lingering shadows. The large purple dragon-like creature with green wings and blue glowing markings across its body lets out a screech. “REEEEE!!!” Purple simply nods at this, while Red wipes off some dragon saliva that was flung his direction when the beast roared. “Your name is Ree then?” Purple asks. “That’s a cool name. Hey Red! It’s one letter away from being Red!”

“Purple, there’s a dragon in this lab!” Red hisses. “Doesn’t that faze you at all?” Purple twitches his antennae in confusion. “What’s a dragon?” Red sighs and points to the monster. “THAT is a dragon! They’re dangerously strong! Be careful!” Purple laughs and turns to the dragon, approaching it with a smile on his face. “Don’t worry; I bet it’s friendly.”

As the Tallest approaches the dragon, a deep growl can be heard from within the beast’s throat. Red’s face goes pale with worry, but he doesn’t dare approach it. “Purple, get back here now,” he orders. “It’s growling at you.” Purple raises his hands to show he’s unarmed and continues his approach. “Hey, don’t worry!” He says to the dragon. “I’m not gonna hurt you!”

Suddenly, in an instant…

“REEEE!!!”

“PURPLE!”

“RED!”

Snap!

The dragon’s jaws snap down on Red’s torso after he had shoved Purple out of the way. The Irken assistants they had brought with them quickly run over to drag Purple away while a few of them go over to try and save Red, but it’s too late. His Pak has been completely shattered in the beast’s jaws, and his body has gone limp, pink blood rolling down the dragon’s Purple jaws and dripping into the floor. “Red!” Purple screams, struggling against the other Irkens. “Let me go! I have to help Red!”

But the Irkens disobey their Tallests order, knowing that it’s impossible to help Red now. They exit the lab and try to close the door behind them, but the dragon sees its chance to escape and takes it, rushing towards the exit and knocking down the Irken trying to close it. The dragon roars and snaps up the fallen Irken, chomping on it a couple times before swallowing it. The dragon and Purple lock eyes for a moment, and Purple feels pure terror run through him as the dragon takes a couple steps towards him, but he is taken into a ship and they fly away. At first, he’s afraid that the dragon is going to chase after them, but for one reason or another, it either doesn’t try or isn’t fast enough to catch up, so it seems that they’re safe now.

Once the fear settles down in him, Purple feels overcome by grief. Red just died. Things are going to be so different now. It already feels different without him. Truthfully, Purple took it for granted that Red was always with him. Now, he feels… lonely. He hasn’t felt lonely in… has he EVER felt lonely? Do Irkens usually feel lonely at all?

One of Purple’s assistants asks him if he’s alright and he replies he’s fine. He can’t tell anyone how he feels now that Red is gone. He’ll just have to deal with it. “Take me to the Control Brains,” he orders.

^^^^^

“Tallest Purple,” the mechanical voice of the Control Brain echos against the walls of the room. “You’ve returned. Where is Tallest Red?”

“He, uh… is busy right now,” Purple mutters. The Control Brain extends a metal tube from underneath him and attaches it to Purple’s Pak. Purple holds his breath, hoping that the Brain won’t notice his grief over the loss of his friend, but he feels a sudden shock go through his body and he winces in pain. The Brain pulls back its tube after reading Purple’s memories. “Irkens have no need for mourning,” he says. “However, we have other matters to discuss, so for now, I will let you go with a warning. Rid yourself of those feelings or I will do it for you.” Purple nods, feeling a strange pang of emotional pain in his gut, but he ignores it. The Control Brain hums quietly for a moment before asking “You do not know about the war between the Irkens and the Horus, do you?”

“The... whores?” Purple questions, quite confused why the Irkens were in a war with whores at one time in history. “No.”

“Horus, not whores. Idiot. Anyway, a long time ago, the Irken race had a certain enemy. They were attempting galactic domination. This was before the Irken goal shifted to galactic domination too. The Horus had the Irkens pinned down and all hope seemed lost. Many Tallests died in the fighting. When Tallest Zerrk came to power, she started a secret experiment to merge Irken DNA with DNA of the extinct ancient dragon race. The dragons were known to be one of the, if not the absolute, most powerful and unstoppable species that ever existed. If Irkens had the power of dragons, we would easily be able to turn the tides and defeat the Horus. However, the experiment failed and Tallest Zerrk was killed by the final test subject, the only one that survived and managed to transform into a dragon. The dragon was sealed away in the secret lab and the war seemed lost. Luckily for us, another planet that was fighting the Horus managed to defeat it before our race was destroyed. This was what prompted us to turn our goal to galactic domination. Our weakness was too apparent. We could not allow anyone to think they could step on us anymore. Anyway, the point is, that dragon has now been released, and it is a danger to our entire species.”

“If this was a secret experiment, did you know about it?” Purple asks. The Control Brain seems unhappy about this question.

“I only found out once the assistants died and I scanned their PAK’s memories,” he hums. “Most of the assistants sealed themselves away with the dragon to attempt to destroy it, but a couple escaped the lab and ended up dying out here where they were taken to me. That is when I learned about the secret experiment.”

“Why don’t we try restarting the dragon experiment? Maybe we can do it now.”

“It is too dangerous. If any more test subjects turn out to be like this this one, an uncontrollable monster, the Irken race will be doomed. At least we might stand a chance if there is only one.”

Purple nods and starts thinking of what he could do to stop this dragon’s rampage, then he recalls something. “Wait a minute... Why did you ask me and Red to open that door if you knew Ree was behind it?” The Control Brain seems confused by this.

“Ree?”

“The dragon.”

“You named it? Idiot. Er, whatever. I assumed the dragon would be dead by now. I have no idea how it survived all this time. I did want to restart the dragon experiments, but seeing the dragon still alive and causing the death of yet another Tallest, I have changed my mind. The dragon experiment is cancelled forever. Your task is to find out the dragon’s weakness and destroy it. As I said, the dragons were once the most powerful and unstoppable force in the universe. However, they did go extinct due to unknown reasons. I need you to find out what caused them to go extinct so we know how to stop this dragon.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Just do it. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir. Or ma’am. Whatever you are.”

“Shut up. Go.”

While Purple is sitting in the ship heading back to the Massive, he tries brainstorming ways to defeat this dragon, but he finds himself losing motivation. Is this caused by the loss of Red? Because he feels bad about it? Grief really sucks. What a bother. He has a job to do!

But Red was always the brains of everything. Purple was never as good at this “Tallest” thing as Red was. “Er, I guess… you!” He points to one of his servants. “Tell the, uh, smart guys to start looking into the dragon extinction! We need to stop that dragon!”

This is going to be quite difficult.

^^^^^

Two months later…

“Welcome, Invaders! To Operation Impending Doom 2!”

The Tallest eagerly announces the beginning of this operation while the chosen Invaders stand in line behind him. “It’s a shame that Red couldn’t be here to witness this moment, but we have to go on without him.”

Thankfully, the dragon hasn’t caused any damage since it’s release. No one knows where it went or what it’s doing. Maybe the dragon went to another planet? If so, good riddance. But if it can travel through space without a spaceship, then it could definitely come back to Irk. It’s still a threat as long as it’s alive.

But that’s not important right now. First of all, there’s the start of Impending Doom 2. The Irken Invaders come in all of different shapes and sizes. One, however, stands out among the others. This is for multiple reasons; for one, she is the tallest of the Invaders. Two, she is dressed in different (similar, but not the same) clothes. Three, she has blue eyes; an eye color that Irkens thought weren’t being made anymore. Four, she is the main character of this story, so you’d better pay attention to her.

This Irken Elite was very recently chosen as an Invader. She tightens the ribbon-like belt around her waist and stands tall as the Tallest turns around to call to each of them and give them their assignment. After a short while… “Invader Talon!” The Irken, Talon, steps forward and tilts her head up slightly to look into her Tallest’s eyes. He gives her an almost intrigued look. “You’re quite tall, Talon,” he says pleasantly. “You must be a really good Invader. I hear you passed the test to become an Elite recently, and didn’t even need much training. Clearly you’re going to be a great Invader.” Talon can’t help but let a small smile creep onto her face. “Thank you, my Tallest.”

“So…” the Tallest says, turning to face the screen in the back. “You’ll be assigned to Planet Theon, home of the weird-looking bee-faced bug people with orbs on their head.” The screen shows a picture of a creature with a long snake-like tail jutting out of a shell-like body. It has two pairs of spider legs that seem to function as both arms and legs, two pairs of beetle-like wings, and a bee-like head with one antenna sticking out of the top with an orb on the end. Talon recognizes the species: they’re called Spam. She nods and salutes her Tallest, then returns to her spot in line to wait for her SIR unit.

After a brief interruption from some random Irken – what was his name? Sim? Whatever; he’s not important or anything – Talon receives her SIR unit and is allowed to begin her journey to planet Theon. She and her SIR unit enter her ship and head off to the planet. “I think I’ll call you TIR(pronounced “teer”),” she says as she sets the ship on autopilot and turns her attention to her SIR unit. “I’ll just make a few adjustments to you and make sure you’re functioning correctly.” TIR nods and allows Talon to do maintenance on him.

By the time they arrive in Theon’s atmosphere, the modifications have been completed. Talon added a Pak-like device on TIR’s back, as well as a tail and two purple talons on each foot. The red coloring on TIR’s body has turned purple instead. There’s a few more adjustments, but nothing that needs to be mentioned at the moment. “Thank you, master,” TIR says. Talon smirks and turns her attention to the planet they’re approaching. “Let’s show this planet who the superior species is.”


	2. A Plan Is Brewing

Upon landing on the planet, Talon lets TIR begin creating her base. While he does that, she takes a brief look around the area they landed in. The planet is mostly desert-like with the occasional grassland or oasis here and there. They landed not far from a grassland. The spam live underground in elaborate caves and tunnels. There’s no tunnel entrances here, so it should be a safe place for them to dig their base. Plus, it’s not far from one of the underground cities, so she can easily get back and forth to spy on the natives and then come and do her experiments.

Suddenly, she notices a spam take flight from the distant grass and head in her direction. She hides behind a cactus, trying her best not to get pricked, and glances back at her ship. It’s already been taken underground, luckily, but the hole is still visible. Soon enough, that hole will be hidden so no one will know it’s there but her.

After the spam flies past her, Talon runs over to the hole and hops into her base. It’s still building itself, but it’s mostly done. “Computer!” Talon calls out. “Create me and TIR disguises!”

A brief moment passes where the computer rumbles and designs a disguise for the two. A pod drops down from the ceiling and envelopes Talon, and when she emerges, she appears to be a spam with a purple exoskeleton and blue wings. The pod then moves over to TIR, who emerges as a smaller spam, one that’s still in its larvae stage. Young spam look more like white snakes than insects. “Interesting,” Talon says. “So that is what a smeet spam looks like.”

“Spam undergo metamorphosis to gain their armor-like exoskeleton,” the computer explains. “The hatchlings are fragile and squishy white snakes. During metamorphosis, a special gooey saliva comes out of the orb on their head, and that saliva covers their body, and it turns into their exoskeleton.” Talon blinks at this information (spam eyelids are transparent. Another fun spam fact). “I didn’t need to know any of that but thanks anyway.”

Next, Talon and TIR create her base’s “exterior.” Well, more like they dig an underground home that looks like what the spam live in, and dig a tunnel that goes out to a small neighborhood in the spam’s town. Now, no one will know that there’s an alien base here; they’ll just think it’s someone’s home. A lattice door with a purple fabric behind it covers the entrance to Talon’s house. Inside is the living room with a tv and couch, a kitchen, and a bedroom with two nests inside. Underneath the nests are the hidden entrances to the base; one for Talon and one for TIR. “Perfect,” Talon says proudly. “Taking over this planet will be a cakewalk with such an amazing base! Hahaha!”

For the next hour or so, Talon and TIR head into their base to read up a bit in the culture of the spam so they can learn to fit in with others. It’ll take some time to figure out how exactly Talon plans on taking over this world.

While they’re in the middle of reading, the computer suddenly informs them that there’s someone at the door. “Ugh, who is it? Why?” Since the computer doesn’t know that, she and TIR scurry back up to the house and Talon goes to answer the door. “Hm?”

Outside the door is two spam with green exoskeletons, one that’s slightly lighter-colored than the other. They both have yellow wings, and the light green one waves at Talon with one of her four claws. “Hello there!” She greets. “Nice to meet you. We’re your neighbors. I’m Zarngonk and this is my brother Zelig. I noticed you moved in just a while ago, so we figured we’d stop by and say hi.” She holds up a tray of square slabs of meat. “I brought over some dinner too. Care to join us for some blafarg steak?” Talon moves aside to invite the strangers inside. “Of course. Come right in.”

Zarngonk carries the steaks over to the kitchen and places them on the table. She notices TIR standing in the doorway to the bedroom and asks Talon “is that your little brother?”

“Yes,” she replies. “His name is TIR. TIR, join us for food consumption.”

The four of them sit down to eat (spam eat with the orbs on their head since they don’t have mouths) and Zarngonk talks about a bunch of random things. How long they’ve been living in town (apparently it’s called Toomii, and it’s right next to a big city called Oopoo), a bit about their life (they were born and raised in the city, but their parents died a while back by a Fumminaife while out hunting, and they moved to the town nearby where it’s cheaper to live) and what they do for work(Zarngonk is a hunter and Zelig is an artist). “Or, he’s trying to be an artist,” Zarngonk says. “It isn’t bringing in much support.”

“I have few followers, but they’re loyal,” Zelig counters. “I’ll become big someday. My comics make people happy and that’s what matters!”

“Continue fueling your dream, Zelig,” Talon says. “I’m sure you’re doing fine. Or whatever. Keep drawing.” Zelig seems quite happy to hear someone supporting him. “I will! Do you wanna see my art? I’m working on a webcomic right now! It’s called The Secret of Sarhye and it’s about this guy who is abducted by aliens and becomes a space pirate! My favorite character is Danseng, because he’s super cool and tsundere but he totally cares for Fumogo deep down.”

“Aliens, huh?”Talon says, instinctively leaning closer a bit in interest. “You like aliens, do you?”

“I love space and aliens!” Zelig says. “I’ve always wanted to meet a real alien! I always go out onto the surface to look for aliens, but I’ve never seen any yet.”

“Perhaps you will someday,” Talon says with a chuckle. “Keep searching.”

Once the two spam leave, Talon drops her disguise and goes down into her base, chuckling to herself. “That one is very interesting,” she says to herself. “I’ll keep my eye on him. He could prove to be very useful if I play my cards right.”

^^^^^

“Any news on the dragon situation?” Purple asks his advisor, Yoop. Yoop shakes his head. “No sightings of Ree have been reported, my Tallest. But we did find something on the abandoned planet Draykon, where the dragons used to live. We think that a long time ago, an Irken went there to find dragon DNA, and apparently found some. We also just discovered that there’s some sort of ruins behind where the DNA was found. Do you want to go take a look?”

“Sure, I’m not busy right now,” Purple says with a shrug. “Take us to Draykon.”

Soon enough, the Massive arrives at Draykon and Yoop leads a group of Irkens over to the newly-discovered ruins. “We sent some archeologists out here by your command, my Tallest, and it took them quite a while, but eventually they discovered this old room behind a hidden door in a cave. A lot of the Irkens we sent out here disappeared somehow, too. This planet really does seem cursed.”

“Cursed?” Purple repeats, suddenly rethinking his decision to come to this planet himself. “Whaddya mean cursed?”

“Yeah, apparently all the planets nearby have tried colonizing this place countless times, but each time they try, the vast majority of people who come here die or just disappear by unknown means. So they’ve called it the Dragon’s Curse, and claim that when the dragons died, they cursed this land so that no one else could live here.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before I arrived here?!” Purple exclaims.

“I thought you knew, my Tallest.”

“I’m an idiot and you know it!”

At this point, they’ve already arrived at the door to the ruins. “Do you want to turn back, my Tallest?” Purple sighs and waves his hand dismissively. “Whatever; I’m already here. Just get on with it so we can leave as soon as possible.”

Yoop nods and takes out a fossilized dragon claw, then places it against the wall. A thin ray of light appears and traces the form of a door against the wall, then it opens up and reveals a huge room full of statues of dragons with huge wings and markings across their bodies. Upon stepping into the room, the markings on each of the dragon statues starts to glow in all different colors of the rainbow. One dragon statue appears to be kneeling on the ground and staring at the intruders with its piercing gaze. Another is breathing out a beam of light onto the ceiling. One statue is of two dragons that appear to be dancing together. In the far back of the room is a glittering gold throne with a dragon king statue sitting in it. A stone plaque on the wall behind it has something written on it in a foreign tongue, probably the dragon’s ancient language. The dragon king statue looms over the Irkens, taller than any Irken could ever dream of growing. Its outstretched arm with its claws spread out almost seems to be threatening to order the Irkens to be thrown into the dungeon to be eaten alive by monsters for intruding. It’s wings stretch out to its sides, as if it could take flight at any moment.

“These things are huge…” Purple says, awestruck by the size of these statues. Was Ree this big? He doesn’t actually recall how large Ree is; he only remembers seeing her jaws snap down on Red’s torso… But he can’t think about that now, even if If IS his fault… No, not now. He has a job to do. “The statues are in perfect condition. Has someone been taking care of them?”

“No,” Yoop says, going to search the area around the throne. “It’s just that no one has been in here for centuries, so nothing has been around to break them.”

While Yoop and the other Irkens search around the statues for clues, Purple goes over to the side wall and looks at the figures carved into them. It seems to show the dragons living their lives before they went extinct. They’re laughing, eating, playing, working… but there’s something odd about this. Strange lines run through certain images that seem out of place. He follows one of them down to the ground, and notices that the out-of-place lines continue onto the floor. He runs into the middle of the floor and looks straight down. “Hey, there’s a drawing on the floor, but it’s too big and I can’t see it all.” He thinks for a moment, then orders “everyone! Create a ladder for me so that I can get higher to see the full drawing!”

The Irkens unquestioningly obey, each one climbing onto the shoulders of another until there’s a ladder five Irkens tall. “Everyone has to ladder,” Purple says, pointing to the remaining Irkens.

“But my Tallest,” the one at the top says. “Only five can ladder.” Purple sighs and goes over to the Irken ladder. “Fine, but that’s a stupid rule.” He climbs onto the ladder, stepping all over the smaller Irkens in the process, and when he gets to the top, he realizes that he could have just climbed onto one of the statues instead. But whatever; he made the Irkens ladder.

Anyway, Purple looks over at the lines and sees that they criss-cross and form a pattern that appears to be some other winged creature. It isn’t a dragon, or at least he doesn’t think it is. It has flames coming out of its wings and tail, and it seams to be roaring up at the throne. “I don’t know what that is, but it’s cool looking,” Purple says.

Suddenly, a warm breeze flows through the room. Yoop shudders and goes over to Purple as he climbs off the ladder. “My Tallest, we need to leave,” he says. “Quick.”

“What why?” Purple asks.

Before he could get an explanation, Yoop grabs his arm and forcefully drags him towards the exit. The other irkens start climbing down from the ladder as well, but while they’re doing so, the eyes of the dragon statues start to glow, and smoke starts seeping out of their mouthes and nostrils. “What’s happening?” Purple asks once he and Yoop are out of the ruins, and in response to his question, the door suddenly slams shut while the agonized screams of the Irkens can faintly be heard from behind it. “O… oh…”

Yoop and Purple return to the Massive, and while Yoop explains what happened to the others, Purple heads over to his room to rest. He isn’t feeling to good anymore. It feels like there’s some strange churning in his squeedly spooch. It’s like what happened when Red was killed, but a bit less intense. What is this feeling? Do other Irkens feel this? Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about it? It’s terrible.

Is it guilt? He’s heard of the feeling, but thought Irkens don’t feel it. Why does he feel guilty? He didn’t do anything.

Maybe he just misses Red. Maybe it just reminded him of that sacrifice. Red, who chose to sacrifice himself for Purple. Why did he do that? What an idiot. Red would be much better at all this stuff than Purple is.

…Is he crying? Purple wipes some water off his face, shocked. Tears? Irkens don’t cry! What is happening? Is he defective? That can’t be. A Tallest can’t be defective.

Honestly though, he doesn’t care right now. He lays down on his couch and waits for him to stop crying. “Red… I’ll catch that dragon and kill it for you,” he says. “I’ll get revenge. Then I’ll be able to move on from this.”

^^^^^

A few weeks go by on Theon. Talon has taken up hunting with Zarngonk and spent some free time with Zelig. He’s shown her all his drawings of fake aliens and comics of space pirates. Talon does her best to act interested when he rambles on about his creations. He’s also a fanfic writer for this show called Invader Kim and he has an OC called Zie. He’s kind of a fanboy for that Kim character and ships Zie and Kim, but he also ships Kim and her nemesis Bib and he can’t decide which ship he likes better so he ships both. Nothing wrong with that; he can have his fantasies. Talon creates her own Invader Kim OC called Gar to try and please Zelig. It works like a charm; he loves Gar and puts her in his new fanfic he’s writing. It’s proving to be very easy to get along with Zelig, which is good. Zarngonk is good too, but Zelig is who she really wants to get along with.

Finally, Zelig invites Talon out to the surface to watch for aliens. This is what she’s been waiting for. No one will be around, so it’ll be safe there.

Zelig leads Talon out of the town’s hole and over to a spot in the tall grass where he sets up his camera and computer. “This will be nice and relaxing!” He days while setting up his computer. “There isn’t much to do while we wait for aliens, but it’s fun to just stare up at the moons and stars.”

While he’s setting up, Talon searches the surrounding area to make sure no one is going to come out of nowhere and see them. “…Zelig,” she says, going over to the computer and powering it off. Zelig protests, and Talon hushes him with a claw to his face. “Before you get set up…” She holds one of her claws to her face, her blue eyes reflecting the light from the stars above them. “There’s something I’d like you to see.”

She switches off the disguise and the form of the purple spam fades away. Zelig stares in utter shock at the change. “I am an Irken,” Talon says. “Invader Talon. I am here to observe your species in order to take over this planet in the name of the almighty Irken race.”

“A… alien…!” Is all Zelig can say at first. It takes him a while before he can speak again, when he mutters “oh gods” under his breath and anxiously twitches his wings. Talon kneels down to check on him. “Don’t tell anyone about me; not even Zarngonk. I’m telling this to you because I want to protect you. Stay with me as my ‘servant’” She says that word in air quotes, but a dark smirk crosses her face for just a moment as she does so. “And you will be able to come with me back to Irk, and possibly even to other planets that I am sent to invade when this mission is over.”

“You… aren’t going to hurt anyone, are you?” Zelig finally asks, sounding quite worried about this. Talon shakes her head. “Hurt anyone? No, of course not. I’m here to take over your planet with…” She shrugs. “Minimal casualties. Stay with me, Zelig. Show your art to people of all different planets.”

Zelig still seems to be in shock from this reveal. It takes him a while, but eventually he gives the Irken a small nod. Talon places a hand on his shoulder. “Good. Come; I’ll show you my base.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey if you’re enjoying the story, leave a comment! I’d love to get some feedback! Also, if you’re curious what Talon and TIR and spam look like, here’s a link to a drawing I did of them!
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/ravina21/art/Invader-REE-Characters-800743085


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